Advice on unheated shop and wood storage

[Alex Shanku]

Hello,

My shop / garage is currently unheated, although I plan on picking up a forced air heater for the cold months ahead.

I would still like to work in my shop this winter, but I have already had problems with wood movement. Specifically, an end grain cutting board I built last week started to pull apart when I brought it into my dry, warm house.

My question is this: When I buy my wood to start a project, should I store it in my house, prior to machining and building, or should I keep it in the garage? Also, should the glue up be done in the garage, or my basement? I would prefer to keep most of the materials and work outside of my house, if possible. THanks so much,

Alex

[John Bush]

Hi Alex,
I had the same issues in my old, wood stove heated shop. I got better results doing glue-ups where the pieces were going to live. I let the wood acclimate a few weeks before final milling and that seemed to help quite a bit. Good luck, John.

[Ian Abraham]

Wood movement is one issue, but you also need to consider the temperature for glues and varnishes. Most have minimum temps that you can use them at. The Poly that I usually use says to keep it above 10 deg C (about 45 F?) for 24 hours while it cures. Some glues are the same.

You are going to have wood movement issues because of the humidity difference, which relates to the temperature. If you only heat your workshop while you are in it then storing the wood inside for a while (a few weeks) before you use it may be a better option. Do the dusty machining and sanding in the workshop, then do the final assembly and finishing inside?

Ian

[Jerry Olexa]

IMHO, storage out there is OK. But it should be brought in and acclimated to indoors before gluing, staining etc. I do all my finesse work inside but do store the lumber in the garage...

[Erik C. Hammarlund]

well, you can move the wood to inside air, or you can move inside air to the wood.

How much wood are you storing?

How do you store it?

If you're a small hobbyist with a small wood stack, you can probably easily build an insulated box (4x8 ply on sides; 4x4 ply ends; cover with scrap insulation) which will be cheap to heat with almost any source. Then your wood would acclimate and be instantly useful for indoor work.

Yes, it's a pain. If it's easier to bring mohammed to the mountain, so to speak then by all means do your final layup somewhere other than your workshop. Otherwise, consider moving the mountain.

[Doug Shepard]

I'm the same boat (and the same area too). Glue wont set worth a darn in the GaShop even with a space heater going so the basement Laundry doubles as a glue-up room when I need it. I've also put some finishes on in the house if the smell isn't too bad - BLO, shellac, WB finishes are OK. Wipe-On poly I've done in the kitchen with both vent fans running and it's workable. The smell is gone within about 20 mins. I keep most of the wood in the shop, but will sometimes bring it in about a month ahead of time then cart individual pcs back and forth as I get them machined. It's a PITA but ... If the pieces are too big or too many, there's not much choice but to keep it out there until ready for inside glue-up. The hardest part of winter WW is the cold cast iron. Everything else can be worked around.

[Matt Guyrd]

Hi ALex.

I have been making a few cutting boards over the last month or so and have a couple of questions. Although I am in VA and the climate is a bit different than MI, I am hoping to avert any cracks in the cutting boards. Also, many of my boards will be going to NH as family gifts and the climate is quite different up there (more like MI, I suppose).

Do you know what the moisture content of your wood is?

How long was the cutting board in your house before you noticed the cracks ( think you indicated one week)?

Where were the failures on the boards? I'm assuming along the glue joints. Is it possible that clamping to tightly starved the joints of glue and contributed to the cracking once the wood started moving?

Did you happen to pay any attention to the grain orientation during glue up?

The wood will have seasonal movement. It seems to me that unless the moisture content changed significantly from the shop to the house, the board should endure typical movement.

Thanks for any feedback you might provide. I have one board that has been in the house for about one month with no cracks yet (fingers crossed). Maybe I should bring the others indoors.

Matt

[Alex Shanku]

Thanks everyone for their advice. I think I now have a handle on what to do, and can get to making a couple of projects for my Christmas gifts.




Hi ALex.

I have been making a few cutting boards over the last month or so and have a couple of questions. Although I am in VA and the climate is a bit different than MI, I am hoping to avert any cracks in the cutting boards. Also, many of my boards will be going to NH as family gifts and the climate is quite different up there (more like MI, I suppose).

Do you know what the moisture content of your wood is?

-- No clue, it had been in my garage for about 5 months. It was red oak.

How long was the cutting board in your house before you noticed the cracks ( think you indicated one week)?

-- Actually, about 2 full days
Where were the failures on the boards? I'm assuming along the glue joints. Is it possible that clamping to tightly starved the joints of glue and contributed to the cracking once the wood started moving?

-- Failures were along only one portion where edge/face grain met. Perhaps clamping too tight was the problem.

Did you happen to pay any attention to the grain orientation during glue up?

-- All end grain was used for the surface, the split occured along down a glue line where edge and face grain were mated.

The wood will have seasonal movement. It seems to me that unless the moisture content changed significantly from the shop to the house, the board should endure typical movement.

-- My house is very dry compared to the outside moisture content. I had not yet even ran my humidifier in my forced-air heated house.

Thanks for any feedback you might provide. I have one board that has been in the house for about one month with no cracks yet (fingers crossed). Maybe I should bring the others indoors.

Matt